Okay, the blog that got me into social media was the blog I started in 2006 when I was living in Seoul and getting a master’s at Ewha Womans University. I’ve been back in the States since 2009, but when I have time, I still keep it going. I’ve always moderated the comments…always.

You always get spam comments or comments from people trying to build links back to their sites. Honestly? That’s fine if they’ve read my blog and their comment is on the topic. I’m willing to help someone with a link back to them if they’re contributing to the conversation on my blog. No worries! Go ahead, comment and link back to yourself.

However, when you’re just showing up, typing something completely irrelevant in, and hitting submit, well, that’s not contributing to the conversation. That’s just spam. It’s not getting through. That’s one big reason I still police the comments on my blog and on my client’s blogs. Another reason is the one Anil Dash wrote a great blog about this week. You can set the tone of the discussion on your site, but you have to do that proactively. Here is that post: If Your Website’s Full of Assholes, It’s Your Fault. He’s right.

However, the disruptive troll commentor isn’t the topic of this post. My topic is spam commentor: the SEO firm or site owners who try to cheat on getting links back to whatever sites.

I had a feeling right away this was a junk comment. The writing is just careless and sloppy. No one writing a dissertation is likely that sloppy. Also, why would someone comment on a post about a social media class? It would make more sense if the post was on the post I made when I was back in school about how to get through writer’s block. Of course, the comment had a link. It was to some junk dissertation page. Basically, think of the businesses that give lazy students papers or substantial chunks of probably plagiarized writing for a fee. There was also a link to pamella’s profile. That led me to a company page that did various things like app development and, surprise, SEO.

Basically, the same m.o. However, at least, this time they linked to a page about health care. However, the sloppy writing was there and the comment really didn’t make a lot of sense. This time the link was to some retail site selling herbs, vitamins and natural remedies. And, oh, surprise, the same link back to the same company.

I tell my clients to definitely go to blogs and contribute quality comments. I DO NOT tell my clients to go to blogs and spam someone’s comment section. I definitely do not do that for them. However, I think this company does. BTW, I know it’s a numbers game. I catch it, but how many people are bothering to moderate their blog comments? If you’re not, honestly? You’re part of the problem.

Be careful who you hire. Run some searches and see what links are coming back to them. That’s a good way to see exactly how they implement SEO for themselves and for the people who pay them.